Real Opinions from Real Gamers, Est 29th Jan ’09

I have been all kinds of unwell this week,
so I’m afraid you just get this quick and dirty strip…

Besides, no matter how ill I am, I couldn’t let this news pass without comment.
It may’ve been hopelessly naive of me, but I really thought that in this age of DLC wonderment, that the traditional incremental Street Fighter retail releases (that render the game that you bought a few months ago completely useless) were a thing of the past.

Well it’s finally here, the one piece of Fallout DLC people have been waiting for. This new slice of content promises so much to Fallout fans. New enemies, new weapons, a raised level cap along with more missions and a re-written ending to the game. So is this new DLC worth your attention and more importantly your hard earned cash, well read on and I will attempt to answer at least one of those questions.

READ ON AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AS THE REST OF THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!!

Still here?? Read on…….

We’ll start strangely enough at the end, well at least what used to be the end of Fallout. What used to be a total dead end much to gamers disgust with no option (apart from returning to a previous save) of getting back out into the wasteland and tying up some loose ends. Whichever way you finished the game, good or bad or whether or not you sacrificed yourself to start up project purity you’ll awaken two weeks later after having been in a coma in the Citadel. There waiting for you is Elder Lyons who needs your help to clean up the wasteland of the remnant Enclave forces. So begins your new adventure which boils down to about four main mission quests and a couple of side missions. That doesn’t mean you have to crack on with the job in hand straight away, you can venture back out into the Capitol Wasteland with a few differences.

If you are going to reach the new level 30 cap you are going to need to get out there and get as much XP as you can get. People who I have talked to have said that after the end of Broken Steel they had maxed out at around level 25. To help counter this somewhat Bethesda has introduced some new high level bad guys. Some of these you’ll encounter in the Broken Steel missions but some you’ll run into while you’re out and about.

Lets start with the Super Mutant Overlords which are slightly more ugly than your common or garden Super Mutant but a lot tougher. These Overlords are often outfitted with one of the new weapons introduced with the DLC, the Tri-Laser rifle. This is a nasty bit of kit to be on the wrong end of and can deplete your health at an alarming rate.
Another new enemy which took me totally by surprise to my cost is the Ghoul Reaver. It looks pretty much like any other Feral Ghoul but with a slight glow to it, but do not underestimate it, again the speed at which it can take you down is alarming and can also throw radioactive goo at you hand grenade style.
Albino Radscorpians now populate some areas of the waste and didn’t seem too much of a problem apart from the fact they regenerate their health if you don’t keep chipping away.
Lastly are the Enclave Hellfire Troopers who carry the new Heavy Incinerator, a flamer that fires flaming balls of death from miles away obscuring your vision and making your life a lot tougher.

Missions are your usual Fallout, go there do that, fare. That’s not to say these are lazy add ons, you’ll be traversing some interesting and varied terrain. Some stand out moments for me was the Old Olney power plant. Making your way through this level is great with some wonderful imagery, working your way through some partially collapsed and leaning offices to a working power reactor spitting out large arcs of electricity was a highlight for me. Also the Presidential Metro complete with a working train felt different to what you are used to being largely unaffected by the bombs that have dropped outside. The last mission takes you right away from the Capitol Wasteland altogether to Anders Airforce Base for a final showdown with the Enclave.

The only real problem I had with the DLC was with the new level cap. By the end of the game I had easily reached level 30 thanks in large part to upping the difficulty to very hard. When you’ve finished the new missions and are encouraged to get back out to the wastes for some smaller side quests you find yourself not really caring any more. A big part of what I enjoyed was working towards getting that new perk you wanted, and although it’s great to put the level cap up I really don’t see why Bethesda couldn’t have removed it altogether.
It won’t take too long for any Fallout veteran to get through Broken Steel but it is sure fun doing it. There are many small touches I’ve not talked about in this review as I believe some things are better found out while playing. If you have been holding off on buying any of the extra content I would strongly suggest starting with the Broken Steel expansion and at 800 MSP I think it is good value for money.

It was a long and tough journey to get to The Pitt for Bethesda. After trudging through the Capital wasteland and venturing into virtual reality of Operation anchorage nothing was standing in their way. Except for XBOX LIVE.
After a few false starts due to a corrupt English file within the DLC, The Pitt is in front of you and it’s reputation is bearing down on you. Time for a change of scenery.

Whilst foraging for scraps in the wastes of Washington yet another distress call comes through on your radio and guides you to people in need of help. A disease is spreading through The Pitt, Pittsburgh has succumbed to slavers who are keeping themselves healthy with a “cure”
You are given the responsibility of acquiring the cure and helping the slavers find the marginal health that can be achieved in the wastes of any town.

From entering The Pitt for the first time, you can tell that you’re in for something very different from what you’ve come to expect from Fallout 3. The sky is burnt with smoke and fire and as you near the slavers camp which surrounds a steel mill, the atmosphere begins to change in more ways than just the aesthetics.
Gaining access to the camp is done by either disguising yourself as a slave or being gutsy and taking your chances. Either way you’re losing all of your equipment and are keeping just one weapon supplied by your first acquaintance, Either a Knife or a gun.

Once inside the camp it’s time to explore and it’s a shame that there isn’t much to see, other than slaves and grime. All points of interest must been destroyed in the last days of Pittsburgh as making your way through The Pitt is a bland affair.
After meeting your contact, it’s time to get on with business. The first of very few missions in the content is a simple collection quest. Ambling down to the steel mill, you can attempt to talk to the other slaves, but most won’t bother talking back. It’s quickly realised that you need to crack on with the task at hand.

Once inside the steel mill, you’re asked to hunt for steel ingots in the “mini wasteland” of The Pitt and this is where you will face the new enemy featured here, The Trogs. The ingots are a valuable asset for the slavers, not valuable for them to venture into the trogs home.
Upon first meeting a trog, a sense of fear will creep through you, not knowing how tough these feral beasts will be. Turns out not so tough. Using a submachine gun found on a dead slave as you enter the area, it doesn’t take much to dispatch a trog.

Once this mission is over, your journey continues through a rather trite plot that sees you battling enemies in an arena in order to gain entrance into the higher echelon of The Pitt where the slavers live and control everything. Not a particularly difficult task with a level 20 character and you can loot each body as each enemy meets their maker.
At this point in the DLC you’re around halfway through and not much time has passed since you started.
After victory is yours in the arena, you’ll be on the home stretch, time to get your gear back and stick it to the man.

The Pitt as an area of play has a convoluted style in it’s layout. Rather than being big in terms of area, it’s more a case of wandering up and down lots of staircases and across makeshift bridges to reach your destination.
Due to the layout of the area, it becomes a chore moving from one place to another and finding your gear takes longer than needed for such a small part of the mission and once you’re gear is back in your possession it becomes even easier to finish up your business in The Pitt.

There isn’t a great deal here to ease the pain of a relatively linear mission path, new weapons are limited to the auto axe, a set of spinning axe heads that tear into people. There’s minimal amounts of new armour and most of it is similar to what you will likely have in your kit anyway.

If you’re expecting a lot from your 800 points, you may be disappointed here.
Bethesda seem to be holding out the best content for the level cap increase in the next DLC pack as everything up to now seems stunted compared to the full game.
The idea of a journey to The Pitt was a great one, but in reality it the journey wasn’t worth it.

Today Treyarch announced that Call of duty: World at war will get it’s first map pack in march.
There will be four maps in total, one of which will be for the Zombie mode.

Nightlife, Sees you walking the streets of war torn Berlin.
Knee Deep, Will have you attacking Japanese in a jungle setting.
Station, takes you underground into a “bombed out” subway station.

Finally, Verrückt (Zombie Asylum). This will be one of the more interesting additions for fans of the Zombie mode. A lot of fans have been asking for perk boxes on forums and Treyarch has delivered. You will also get more weapons and electroshock defences (which sounds great)

It’s unfortunate after the success of operation anchorage that Bethesda has now announced that the follow-up DLC packs will be delayed by a month each.
“The Pitt” and “Broken steel” will be available in March and April respectively, No news on why they are delayed is known at present. But by May we will see the level cap raised, better late than never, EH Wastelanders??

Well, this week saw the anchorage DLC appear on the dashboard of XBOX LIVE. Being the massive Fallout 3 fan that I am, I promptly downloaded it and ventured back into the wasteland.
The DLC is set out nicely, upon starting the game you come across a signal from the outcast brotherhood which you can follow to the new content. After arriving at the outcasts meeting point you are told that they are trying to break into a room full of armour and weapons, However the only way to get in is to run a military simulation of the Chinese invading Alaska.
Only someone with a pip-boy can access the simulation and there you are with the tech they need hanging off of your arm.

The DLC content itself is quite linear, not giving away any spoiler details, you are told that you must take out the invading Chinese by completing different objectives, for example blowing up fuel tankers for the tanks that they use. There are a lot of stealth aspects to the missions and it shows a different side to fallout 3.
Once you get to the halfway point you are tasked with heading up a squad to carry out further missions.
This is probably the most interesting aspect of the DLC, you are given five tokens in order to choose your squad. 1 token for standard infantry, 2 for snipers/missile launcher etc and up to 5 tokens for a sentry bot.
It’s a great addition to the game.

All the armour and weapons found in the DLC are great and I completed the full content in 3 hours. It was a great addition to the Fallout history, the story that ran throughout was compelling. The only downside that may be picked up by more discerning players is the blatant racist patriotism. The American view of how they feel about the Chinese is oafish, with comments like “Go back to your own country” it feels very lowbrow for Bethesda, However this can be seen as a satirical view on the American attitudes of recent times.

All in all the DLC at 800 points is great value and an excellent chance to extend an already superb game, all I can say is roll on February for the next instalment from Bethesda.